Thursday, August 18, 2005

Impeachment: How the White House is dissuading a needed inquiry into 9-11, DSM

Able Danger is getting spun to shift responsibility from Bush to "someone else." However, the arguments used to avoid White House accountability are flawed.

Some suggest Able Danger shows Gorelick's "wall" was the reason for 9-11, thereby putting the responsibility on Clinton, not Bush.

Small problem: "The wall"-argument is a red herring. NSC has the means through the DSP to bring all the CIA-FBI information [that they can't talk to eachother about], into a single picture.

Further, putting Able Danger aside, we still have the issue of the 52 FAA warnings: It doesn't matter what Able Danger did or didn't say -- 52 FAA warnings apparently weren't enough!?!? Fifty-two known alerts through the FAA, is now being overshadowed by a single Able Danger program?!? Curious how 52 is offset by 1. That's absurd.

Although I find it interesting about "who said what" in re Able Danger, I conclude:

A. Able Danger confirms that there were other methods to arrive at the information about what was going on;

B. Bush was in charge on 9-11; and

C. Bush made a decision, despite the 52 FAA warnings and the Aug 2001 PDB, to do nothing, but go on vacation in August 2001.

Last time I checked, Bush, not Gorelick or Clinton, was reading "My Pet Goat" on 9-11. Although Able Danger may have been a DoD effort, I see nothing before me to suggest that something:

[a] got in the way of the NSC combining this information; or

[b] interfered with the President acting on the other inputs he got, or should have gotten, from the FAA.

Summation

Although Able Danger was a real program, RNC is spinning it "their way."

But this is a distraction. Regardless Able Danger, Bush had plenty of chances to look into the issues, implement some sort of plan, and take some action. Recall, there were transition meetings in November 2000, just after the election:

- Where was CIA; and

- How were the impeachment-distraction-from-Monica-missile attacks on Sudan/Afghanistan discussed in light of what was of concern in re Taliban?

Bush failed. The evidence before us suggests the Downing Street Memo and "fixing of facts" is also going on with 9-11.

We need an inquiry; whether that inquiry does or does not lead to an impeachment is irrelevant. The important goal is to find facts, then move forward. Right now, we have too many unknowns. That is no basis to credibly argue over alternatives. Alternatives to what? Nobody knows.